The Redefined Series
by Eledhwen
Summary: A series of vignettes following the events of 'Redefinition', season 2. *Updated - Gunn added*
1. Redefined - Angel

Story title: Redefined –Angel  
  
Author: Eledhwen  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Redefinition', AtS season 2  
  
Summary: part of the 'Redefined' series of vignettes. Alone in the Hyperion, Angel muses. And they're not nice thoughts.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be mine, Joss Whedon and friends'.  
  
  
  
REDEFINED – ANGEL  
  
The demon is not getting stronger. I am not turning back into … into what I was.  
  
I am losing control.  
  
I was ready. I knew they were there before the door opened, before they saw me. My Darla, blonde and beautiful; mad Dru, a dark enchantress. Somehow dropping that cigarette on the ground was the easiest thing I have ever done. The gas caught fire just as I had planned, the flames driving inexorably towards them. I scarcely heard their screams as I left the factory.  
  
A part of me asks what Cordelia and Wesley would have said. What Gunn would have said. But that part is small, and weak, and I can control that. I have spent too long, too long pretending to be a human. I'm not. I always knew that. Just because of the soul, just because of the voices ringing in my ears, that doesn't mean I belong with them. I need to get over my pointless longing for humanity and return to what I was – what I am. To shut down these emotions that threaten to dominate me, and fight Wolfram and Hart on their own territory. They want a big bad vampire – then they shall have one.  
  
But I will not lose control. I will not give into the voice of this demon inside me. I will use it, play with it, show it to the world, but I will not lose control. I cannot lose control.  
  
I am losing control.  
  
When I closed the cellar doors I was not condemning them. I was saving them. Another minute, another thirty seconds, standing there, smelling their pure fear – and their desire for death – I would have closed the doors from the inside and joined Darla. And what she said is true. Nobody could keep up with me. To have slowly, tortuously drained the life out of Lindsey McDonald, or Holland Manners; to have broken necks and stood over the pile of corpses – I was moments away from giving in to all of that, just moments. I wanted it. I did care, but in the wrong way.  
  
Am I Angel? Am I Angelus?  
  
Who knows? Not me. 


	2. Redefined - Cordelia

Author: Eledhwen  
  
Rating: U / G  
  
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Redefinition', AtS season 2  
  
Pairing: Cordelia/Angel  
  
Summary: part of the 'Redefined' series of vignettes. Cordelia comes home alone at the beginning of 'Redefinition'.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be mine, Joss Whedon and friends'.  
  
  
  
REDEFINED – CORDELIA  
  
She dumped the box of files down and closed the door, leaning against it heavily.  
  
"Hey, Dennis."  
  
The stereo clicked on, wafting something light and ballady through the room. Cordelia smiled, wanly. "Thanks." She pulled herself upright and locked the door, and then went round and closed the curtains so she was snug and secure in the lit apartment. Then she picked up the box and took it over to the coffee table to unpack.  
  
Pens, pencils, paper … coloured post-it notes in pink and orange. Hair bobbles and ribbons, an earring, old receipts from coffee bars. Two books on demons that should have gone with Wesley; Cordelia put them aside. A piece of paper, folded in two. She unfolded it and stared, her eyes blinking as she examined the carefully drawn lines of her own face, and the single letter in the corner, signing it.  
  
She crumpled the page and threw it away from her, where it was lifted up and deposited in the bin.  
  
Cordelia closed her eyes and lay back on the sofa, tears trickling from under the lids as she remembered the pure joy she had felt on turning around at a party and seeing a familiar face. How nice it had been when he had returned her smile. How good it had been to see him come to save her. How much she had come to rely on his presence. Dark, silent, often unnerving, but there. Of all people, the one non-person she knew was always there for her. He killed for her. He held her when the visions hit. He laughed at her jokes and was worried when she was ill, or tired, or injured.  
  
He had fired her.  
  
A shiver ran through her as she remembered the cold, expressionless voice as he had described the scene he had come from. Empty eyes that brought back memories she thought she had repressed. Her Angel, her saviour, her best friend, was a killer. He had cared. He cared no longer.  
  
Cordelia curled up on the sofa, hugging a cushion to herself, and let the tears come. A box of tissues floated to her side and hovered until she had taken a wad out, and then was replaced silently on the coffee table. The music changed, soothing and calm, and a wrap landed on top of her. For a moment, she fancied she felt a breath of cool air by her cheek and a whispered word of comfort, but the moment passed. 


	3. Redefined - Wesley

Author: Eledhwen  
  
Rating: U / G  
  
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Redefinition', AtS season 2  
  
Pairing: Wesley/Angel  
  
Summary: part of the 'Redefined' series of vignettes; Wesley's point of view.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be mine, Joss Whedon and friends'.  
  
  
  
REDEFINED – WESLEY  
  
He throws off his jacket and carefully locks the door behind him. He can see Virginia curled up on the couch, asleep with her hair rumpled around her face, and a smile comes to his. And then fades again, as he remembers where he has been.  
  
Wesley rolls up his sleeve and examines the dry bandage around his arm. Clean, no poison; it'll be all right in a few days. He crosses the room and sits next to Virginia, shifting her legs so there is room for him on the couch, and she opens her eyes.  
  
"Hey. You're back."  
  
"I'm back." He puts his arm around her shoulders as she cuddles closer, glad of the warm body next to his.  
  
"What did Angel say?"  
  
"Nothing." Wesley rests his chin on her head. "Not a word."  
  
"Is he … has he turned evil?" She turns a worried face up to him. "I don't want you being hurt, Wes."  
  
"No, he's not evil. If he were evil, he wouldn't stop talking. I'm quite relieved he didn't say anything, as a matter of fact."  
  
"Oh. Good." She closes her eyes again, and moves a little against his chest.  
  
Wesley stares across the room at the broadsword hanging on the wall, thinking of the deathly silence he has left behind at the Hyperion. Of Angel's dead eyes. Eyes that used to be full of some feeling, of grief at least, and sometimes happiness. The celebration they had had on translating "shanshu." Perhaps his finest moment, Wesley thinks. How the two of them had taken it in turns to dance Cordelia around the room – himself slowly and carefully, his body aching still from his injuries; and Angel exuberantly, waltzing Cordy with that wide, beaming smile Wesley can scarcely remember seeing on his friend's face. And now – what was left? Blank concentration on a target, the glinting silver of daggers thudding into wood. Fatal silence, and the sentence laid on them all.  
  
To fight the good fight. Alone. Without their companion, their friend, their leader. To keep going, to die, maybe. Yet, Wesley thinks, taking off his glasses and laying them on the coffee table, he will keep on. In memory of the vampire – of the man – he had come to like and respect and trust, against all laws of nature.  
  
And maybe one day, he hopes, closing his own eyes and resting his head against the couch cushion, the nightmare will finish. 


	4. Redefined - Lindsey

Author: Eledhwen  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Redefinition', AtS season 2  
  
Pairing: Lindsey/Darla, Lindsey/Angel  
  
Summary: Following 'Redefinition'; Lindsey is alone in his new apartment, thinking and drinking. Part of the 'Redefined' series of vignettes.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be mine, Joss Whedon and friends'.  
  
  
  
REDEFINED – LINDSEY  
  
Lindsey poured himself a fresh glass of bourbon and held it in his good hand, gazing empty-eyed at the bland watercolour on the wall of his new apartment. This one was vampire-free, so far, and a part of him hoped it would stay that way.  
  
A part of him didn't.  
  
He remembered the non-feel of Darla's mouth near his jawbone, and the cool, soft sensation of her hand on his cheek. The graze of teeth and the stinging as his life force was drawn out of him. Burning, yellow eyes; a soft guttural growling. A low, mocking voice. "Because I love you, Lindsey."  
  
He drank, and ran his prosthesis over the bruise which had still not faded under his chin. He wondered if it would ever fade, or if Angel would keep returning to repaint it. Once a week, the door knocked in, a silent black shadow on the threshold; a hand like steel clamped around his throat. A regular appointment, like the trip for therapy to the hospital. "How are you feeling, Mr McDonald? Do you still have nightmares?"  
  
Oh, he had nightmares all right. But they had ceased to scare him. He almost found himself enjoying them. He had had nightmares since he had lost his hand. Since he had recorded Darla's memories on file, long litanies of sins committed a century ago. Since she had told him about one hundred and fifty years of rampage and slaughter, or blood and desire. Lindsey dreamt of golden eyes and ivory skin, of dark hair and red blood, of innocence and debauchery. There was fire and darkness and the cold smell of earth. Voices, whispering. Darla … Angelus … Drusilla … Daddy …  
  
Lindsey laughed, shortly, the sound echoing without mirth in the bare rooms. Vampire-free. His world would never again be vampire-free. He would live out the rest of his days trapped in their darkness, caught by the scar on his neck and the empty feeling at his wrist. Marked, forever, eternally.  
  
He put down his glass and reached for a file from the pile at his feet, humming to himself quietly. "Run and catch, run and catch …" 


	5. Redefined - Gunn

Story title: Redefined – Gunn  
  
Author: Eledhwen  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Redefinition', AtS season 2  
  
Summary: part of the 'Redefined' series of vignettes. Gunn's point of view.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be mine, Joss Whedon and friends'.  
  
  
  
REDEFINED – GUNN  
  
He paid and took his taco, turning away from the van and biting in, juices running down his chin. He wiped them away and automatically munched the rest of the meal down, but his heart was not in it.  
  
"This was just a side gig," he had said, glibly, easily, outside the Hyperion a few hours earlier, and he had watched as Wesley's shoulders slumped and Cordelia's eyes lost more of their sparkle. He had pretended that he did not care, that working for the vampire alongside the Englishman and the cheerleader was not important. Now, leaning against a wall finishing a taco that tasted of cardboard, he knew he had been kidding them and kidding himself.  
  
Angel Investigations did matter. His life had been turned upside down the day Angel had shown up dodging traps and saving Alonna's life. Until that day, Charles Gunn had seen demons, vampires, monsters, as bad. Unequivocally bad news, and wholly evil. But he had watched Angel struggle with his feelings, save lives, worry about Cordelia, and he had come to realise that his automatic human reaction, to treat Angel as a bad guy because he was a vampire, was wrong.  
  
Yet now, as he efficiently threw the wrapping from the taco into a nearby trashcan, Gunn revised his opinion again. He had seen plenty of things that scared him in his years on the street. Until now, Alonna's demonic face had been the worst. Now, he revised that opinion, and placed Angel's unemotional confession and blank gaze as the most terrifying thing possible. And that fact, that single fact, made Gunn as scared as he had ever been.  
  
He put his hands in his pockets and started off towards his 'hood; but he only took ten steps before he turned around and went back in the other direction. He was not sure what to sing, but he knew he had to sing, and ask the advice of the Host. For in throwing them out of the Hyperion, Angel had made Gunn lose his way. And he wanted more than anything else to find it again. 


End file.
